The Occupy Movement and its Extreme Left Component Implode

The Occupy Wall Street movement has not only disintegrated, but is now imploding. Left-wing news sites are gloating about the demise of their own. BuzzFeed ran a story last week on the hijacking of the primary Occupy Wall Street Twitter account by a transsexual who is now claiming to be the founding organizer of the movement.

Justine Tunney has caused quite an uproar within what remains of the dying Occupy movement for a couple of reasons. First, Occupy prided itself as being a “horizontal,” leaderless movement, not a top-down organization directed by a leader like Tunney. The anonymous masses displaying their Guy Fawkes masks want the illusion that Occupy was spontaneously started by the working class (“the 99 percent”), idealistically how a Marxist utopian communist revolution should emerge; they don’t want to admit it was a movement directed by any bourgeois leader. Secondly, Tunney is now a software engineer at Google, embodying big business and the corporate world, practically the antithesis of the Occupy movement which despises corporate America. In December, Occupiers attempted to block buses from large tech companies like Google and Apple from picking up their workers.

Tunney is not interested in working with the mainstream left. Blowing off the Democrat Party – the closest connection the Occupy movement ever had to power – makes it pretty unlikely Occupy will ever accomplish much. Tunney bragged last week about the negative relationship the clueless anarchist amateurs who started Occupy have with Democrats, “That’s why Liberal Eliteâ„¢ has always fought so hard to destroy Occupy. It’s why they spread lies about us. Because we’re #winning.”

At the same time Occupy has been imploding, the angry extreme left has resorted to using the Twitter hashtag #RWNJ, which stands for Right Wing Nut Jobs. What is revealing about this is it acknowledges that the left has given up on trying to work with the right wing; instead, they would rather block them and bash them. Resorting to angry tactics like that says a lot about their inability to debate and work through issues. A typical tweet from that channel: “It is always so much easier to block #RWNJ trolls than trying to reason with them.”

This attitude is emblematic of where the far left is today. They would rather cut off debate entirely than actually debate the right. No longer are they are interested in the civilized kind of political debates this country was founded on and has relied upon for years, epitomized by the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. The left would rather silence the right to win.

Their language is full of hate towards the right, which is hypocritical considering they claim to be against hate with their No Hate gay campaign. One tweeted, “If you want to see an illogical and crazy these #Kochsucker, check out this #RWNJ = @CapitaLiszt #psycothic #loser #liar #nutjob #suckup.” Much of the language is so foul it cannot be repeated here.

Even more amusing, the far left cannot stop bragging about themselves while avoiding genuine debate with the right. One lefty tweeted, “You know why I pick on #RWNJs? : Because I feel I have a gift I must share with the world!” One prolific contributor to the channel has a grandiose username of “princessomuch.” Another has a blank website entitled liberalbadass.com. His ostensibly credentialed background is enjoying wine and supporting lefty causes. One can’t help but wonder what is wrong with these people to brag this much about nothing.

Many of those who contribute to #RWNJ have profiles that say “I am awesome” and are all about explaining how they – in all their importance – : have come to their viewpoints. The vast majority haven’t accomplished much in their life, but boy do they brag about their opinions. Who is reading these thousands of narcissistic profiles, tweets and blog posts? There are so many now like this, it is mind-boggling.

The anger combined with the constant bragging makes one wonder what is wrong with them. Are they taking out personal issues in the political realm in order to mask them as simply anger over partisan politics? What is clear is that they’ve lost the intellectual debate. Refusing to debate issues anymore is a sign the left admits they no longer have any arguments left to refute the right; they’ve let emotionalism take over.

Rachel Alexander

Rachel Alexander is a Senior Editor at The Stream and Editor of Intellectual Conservative. She writes for Townhall, the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research, the Christian Post, weekend news items for Right Wing News and occasionally for the UK Guardian. She is a recovering attorney and former gun magazine editor. In 2011-2013, she was listed as one of the 50 Best Conservative Columnists by Right Wing News.